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Not just in the Slums, Rapists live among Us Too

One
afternoon, more than 20 years ago, at a college youth festival in Kochi, I was
with a bunch of friends at a neighbouring college canteen. A few boys known to
my friends (friends of friends) joined the group. The sun was high overhead and
a degree of ennui had seeped into our mindless chatter. Sitting on wooden
benches, munching vadas, we had let the conversation drift and drag: from the usual to the boring. It was just a regular, sweaty afternoon. The scene
so commonplace: a few college boys chatting up a few college girls.

But
that afternoon is tattooed deep in my memory- singled out from the rest of my college
afternoons- and singed there. The boy with the curls, sitting opposite me, began to casually talk about the woman he had raped
in Chennai. His tone was not loud or bragging- just a bored shrug. And he
inferred he was not alone in this evil act- there was a bunch of them- maybe
four or five. It was surreal. Like a bad dream. I wonder, now, if the others
had heard him above the din of the youth festival. Did the others listen like I
did? In a matter-of-fact voice, he said that he had been involved in a rape. He
could have been discussing the tasteless vada for all he cared. I still
remember he looked down at some point, no, not out of remorse, but to drink his
coffee and he continued in a dull tone that the police had been after him. His
folks, he said, had got him out of the situation. The reason, he droned, why he
had to move to a college in Kochi was to get out of the sticky situation.

Rape
to him was just a “situation” that had to be handled. Maybe greasing palms
and pulling strings had helped him get out. But what was appalling was the
banality of it all. The casualness of his tone was disturbing. Did he
perhaps think it was just a cool thing to say? It was, perhaps, for him as
mundane as brushing his teeth or driving a bike or eating chips. I was
shocked out of my depths. My only response was utter silence. Years later,
I know from far, that he, a middle-aged married man, has two children
and lives somewhere in Kochi. I know nothing more. I don’t know anything about
the victim, whether she died or she was able to construct her life as coolly as
he did. Did she get out of the situation? I only know I was just shocked into a
stupid, idiotic silence.

I
must recount here a similar story about a childhood friend’s brother. We heard
from very reliable sources that he and his gang of friends were picked up by
the police for rape. They had gang-raped a girl who lived around the corner of
his house. We never heard about
any case against him. He, too, had got away without being charge-sheeted. He
had been let off.

No,
let’s not stereotype a rapist. These beasts don’t just rise from the slums they
also live among us. He could be your friendly next door neighbour, your friend’s
friend or even an elderly uncle. And in the state of Kerala, the fathers of the rape victims
are often the first accused. Read this report: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?278319 In 2011, a young girl, Soumya was pushed out
of a speeding train somewhere between Ernakulam and Trissur. The
rapist then jumped off the train and brutally raped the injured girl.
How horrifying! She later died at the hospital. A few years before, a young woman was murdered on a train, near Ernakulam, when she visited the bathroom early morning.

The
death of the 23-year-old rape victim in Delhi has forced me to introspect. Examine things that I have failed to do. The shroud of silence I have worn that has
aided the decay and death of a society’s conscience. I, too, am
culpable - for not speaking out. Every time I board a bus and try to avoid a
grope; every time I use the loo on the train and hurry back to my seat worried about my safety; every time the rickshaw man lecherously looks at me
through his rear-view mirror; I must remember that it was my silence that made
these acts permissible. Every time, I rush back home before 8 pm I must remember
it was my silence that legitimized the male monopoly over the public space at night, the male monopoly over violence. My refusal
to speak up, in a way, has sanctioned violent sexual acts in this country. (A TV channel reported there are one lakh cases of sexual offenses pending with the Indian courts.) And now I must ask: How much longer can I keep running away from this
unsafe society? And where will I run to? When the only armour I am endowed with
is my fear!

(I know of two rapists who were never charged. How many do you know?)

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